{"id":641613,"date":"2026-10-09T21:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/641613\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T21:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:56:09","slug":"anne-carsons-nobel-winning-genre-defying-work-bridges-the-gap-between-ancient-greek-literature-and-modern-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/641613\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Carson\u2019s Nobel-winning, genre-defying work bridges the gap between ancient Greek literature and modern life"},"content":{"rendered":"

The same year that Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey<\/a>\u201d has broken box office record<\/a> after box office record<\/a>, Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson has been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature<\/a> at the age of 76. <\/p>\n

Although Nolan and Carson differ in approach, medium and critical reception, both have sought to make works of ancient Greece new for a contemporary audience.<\/p>\n

This creative accessibility is likely at least part of why the Nobel committee has seen fit to honor Carson\u2019s \u201cbold and inventive<\/a>\u201d body of work, which defies genre: Her poems, essays, translations, stage productions and collaborations often evoke another time and place but speak freshly and vividly to audiences today. <\/p>\n

Anne Carson was sweeping the kitchen when the Nobels came ringing.<\/p>\n

Translation made original<\/p>\n

Take, for example, her 2019 staged performance, \u201cNorma Jeane Baker of Troy<\/a>.\u201d In it, Carson overlays Helen of Troy with Marilyn Monroe in order to explore the destructive power of beauty. By revisiting an ancient figure blamed for the Trojan war<\/a> through the lens of a 20th-century sex symbol<\/a>, Carson invites audiences to reflect on the ways both women have come to represent glamour and tragedy. <\/p>\n

Her 2015 translation of the play \u201cAntigone,\u201d which toured internationally<\/a>, hews closer to Sophocles\u2019 original. Yet her lively version<\/a> inflects this ancient tragedy with a contemporary voice. Creon\u2019s lament over his dead wife, which Richard C. Jebb<\/a> translates as \u201cO miserable that I am, and steeped in miserable anguish!\u201d is rendered in her translation \u201cnow I am perfectly blended with pain.\u201d Jebb\u2019s Antigone says \u201cah me unhappy! who have no home on the earth or in the shades\u201d whereas Carson\u2019s says \u201cI\u2019m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren\u2019t I\u201d about her dilemma.<\/p>\n

Other projects of hers veer into forms the ancient world would have had trouble recognizing. She collaborated with artist Rosanna Bruno<\/a> on a 2021 graphic novel adaptation<\/a> of Euripides\u2019 play \u201cThe Trojan Women,\u201d first performed in 415 B.C.E. In 2025, she even read her poems on an album<\/a> for the indie rock band Rheostatics. Dave Bidini, one of the band\u2019s founding members, described Carson<\/a> as an artist who \u201chasn\u2019t been afraid to experiment with language, to carve a place that\u2019s her own with her work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaving space for imagination<\/p>\n

The originality of her contribution can also arise from a refusal to do what many tend to expect from translations of ancient works in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Not, Winter<\/a>,\u201d her 2002 translation of Sappho, drew attention to the fragmentary nature of Sappho\u2019s surviving work. <\/p>\n

Only one complete poem<\/a> of Sappho\u2019s entire corpus exists: her \u201cOde to Aphrodite<\/a>.\u201d Of the remaining fragments, some are lengthy, some only a word or two long, often quoted by other ancient authors. A number were found in shreds of papyri likely recycled to wrap mummies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In her translation, where papyri were tattered<\/a> or a word obscured<\/a>, Carson indicates this by using brackets<\/a> and white space<\/a>. Rather than eliding them, Carson ends up bringing attention to these absences \u2013 an utterly distinctive choice. <\/p>\n

\"Scan<\/a><\/p>\n

Much of Sappho\u2019s surviving work exists only in fragments.
\n Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Gr. class. c. 76 (P)\/1-2<\/a><\/p>\n

Carson states in the introduction to the translation that the brackets \u201cimply a free space of imaginal adventure,\u201d an invitation to fill in the blank of language now lost to us. Additionally, as classicist and translator Emily Wilson<\/a> notes, Carson \u201cadds no possessive pronouns or definite articles<\/a>\u201d that are not present in the Greek, another way she lets contemporary readers meet Sappho\u2019s fragments head on. <\/p>\n

Where Carson lets an ancient voice speak without interposition, some have found \u201cher particular kind of austerity<\/a>\u201d wanting. Wilson, for instance, is critical of Carson\u2019s refusal to tilt her translation in a way that acknowledges the important role that Sappho\u2019s gender and sexuality<\/a> have played in her reception over time. <\/p>\n

Wilson further critiques<\/a> Carson\u2019s \u201cAn Oresteia<\/a>,\u201d her 2010 translation and adaptation of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. <\/p>\n

Wilson writes that Carson \u201cis acutely conscious of the differences, in mood, worldview and style, among the three tragedians she translates. It is, then, a disappointment that she does not entirely succeed in making them sound properly distinct from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

A running dialogue with literary greats<\/p>\n

It may be that the most distinctive voice in Carson\u2019s translations of ancient authors is her own. But even her original work owes an evident debt to the words of others. She writes with and through other literary voices throughout her work.<\/p>\n

Her long poem \u201cThe Glass Essay<\/a>\u201d explores romantic heartbreak and familial sorrow in dialogue with the life and work of Emily Bront\u00eb. <\/p>\n

\u201cNox<\/a>,\u201d an art book and work of poetry created after her brother\u2019s passing<\/a>, is also an exploration of the elegy that the Roman poet Catullus wrote to his own brother<\/a> over 2,000 years before. <\/p>\n

And this is what Carson so often does so well: She draws the past into the present and refreshes it for us with a poet\u2019s capacity for language and a classicist\u2019s awareness of the long legacy of literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The same year that Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d has broken box office record after box office record, Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-641613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}